Psystar, It Was Nice Knowing You…

The legal drama between Apple and scrappy upstart clone maker Psystar appears to have ground to a halt -- with Psystar mostly being the one ground up in the courtroom.

Apple won a permanent injunction against Psystar on Tuesday following summary judgement in favor of Apple’s claims of copyright infringement and violation of the DMCA, according to MacRumors.

So what does that mean for Psystar? According to court documents, they are now prevented from doing any of the following:1. Copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing, or creating derivative works of plaintiff's copyrighted Mac OS X software without authorization from the copyright holder;

4. Manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to plaintiff's copyrighted Mac OS X software, including, but not limited to, the technological measure used by Apple to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X on non-Apple computers;

5. Manufacturing, importing, offering to the public, providing, or otherwise trafficking in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively protects the rights held by plaintiff under the Copyright Act with respect to its copyrighted Mac OS X software.

The injunction would seem to be the end of Psystar’s clone business at long last, and probably enough intimidation to prevent another company crazy enough to follow in their footsteps from taking that chance. Psystar has until December 31, 2009 to comply with the injunction.

Comments

Saying that Apple is creating a monopoly by blocking competition in the OSX market is like saying that Coca-Cola has a monopoly in the Coke Classic market. It's gibberish. It's Apple's product and they can sell it or not sell it however they choose. That is the basis of a free market. And they have plenty of competition: Namely Windows, as well as Linux. You even said in your own argument, that you choose to use apple even though you could do everything you need to do on a Windows machine. That's free market baby.

So, the Nintendo Wii OS won’t run on an Xbox 360 - is that wrong? I think you do not have a grasp on the legalities of stealing someone’s work and/or your understanding of “competition” is.

If you want a Mac or OS X, buy an Apple. If you want an LS6 ZR1 Corvette you buy it from Chevrolet.

If you want a Metallica song, you buy it from Metallica.

Apple is a GREAT success story of free market. The things you suggest are wrong with Apple go against the principals of free market. I think it is clear that Apple DRIVES the technology innovation/cool/gotta have it segment ... anyone can create their own OS and give it away or sell it for less. Go ahead.

Due to the unfair business practices of Apple (no competition with OS/X), I believe Microsoft should start making proprietary hardware, and only allow Windows 7 (XP, other) to work on their hardware; I wonder how the slanted courts would react to that.

Apple's EULA is crap, and they are two faced. On one hand they are constantly suing Microsoft for unfair competition and issues related to unfair EULA, but when someone finds a way to offer OS/X to other users, they cry about protecting their own EULA. It's like constantly dealing with 12 year olds. I don’t believe that anyone other than Apple or Microsoft should be allowed to MODIFY their OS without their agreement.

I have an early 2008 24" iMac 2.4G, a third week 27" iMac 3.06G, and just picked up my 15" MacBook Pro 15" 2.53G with a 320G 7200 rpm HD. No part of me believes I "owe" Apple my loyalty, on the contrary, I believe they owe me for buying their product when they own less than 6% of the PC market. Apple and its users are in general a closet cult that is as rabid, and as malcontented as the ECO global warming terrorists. The same can be said for anyone in the Microsoft world for whom their planet orbits Mr. Gates and company.

The free market that built America did so successfully by providing an avenue for competition, and that competition by its nature forced products and technologies to improve or die a justified death. Apple is far from perfect, and I don’t believe their computer design and technologies are either flawless, or justify the 50-100% premium. I make the conscious choice to buy their products for several reasons, the most important being the OS. Can I do what I need with either OS/X or Win7, yes, and at work we only use Microsoft OS’s. Apple has plenty of room for improvement, but they have grown complacent, and now largely focus on the hardware. They need a shot of invigoration, and need to start working on front end user improvements on the OS. I believe Pystar provided that motivation, but Apple shut them down so that they could remain dormant or not disturbed in their sleep.

I remember way back when the Apple IIe came out, there were Apple clones called Pineapple and Orange. Eventually, they disappeared as their quality control was not very good and no one wanted an Apple clone except for some PC users who were use to PC clones. Well Pystar, Ce la Vie. iHing @ iCrazee - Experience the Personal Madness of Owning an Apple Mac